Something
by hushedgreylily
Summary: H/N, on a conference in Scotland. Mainly shameless fluff. Enjoy.
1. One

**Something**

**Author's Note – H/N, on a conference in Scotland. Sorry I haven't been around for so long, 2011 was my year from hell… check my livejournal, which there's a link to one my profile, if you want any more information. I started writing this years ago, and have only decided to catch up with it now, so they're aren't really any spoilers for you to worry about. I think I've kept it T, but if any of you think I should up it to M, please let me know. Hope you enjoy. No infringement intended.**

**Chapter One**

"…_Ladies and gentlemen… I am pleased to announce that we have arrived safely in Edinburgh airport a few minutes ahead of schedule. If you could please remain in your seats with your seatbelts fastened until the plane has come to a complete standstill and the seatbelt sign is off… thank you…"_

Harry Cunningham turns his head to look at the woman next to him, curled up as much as she could with the restraint of the seat-belt, head leaning against the hard, smooth interior of the plane, blonde curls falling in front of her face, obscuring her from his view. She hadn't exactly been the most talkative of company during the flight, having settled herself, using his coat as a pillow – which had long since fallen to her side – to sleep almost the second after the cabin crews' slightly half-hearted safety talk had finished. He doesn't blame her, not really… they'd had another tiring day at work, and Leo had hardly given them time to breathe before dropping them off at the airport for the Annual Pathology Conference – someone had clearly had the bright idea of holding it in Edinburgh this year.

"Nikki…" he breathes, leaning towards her, putting a hand on her shoulder lightly. "We're there…"

Eyelids flicker open slowly, and she looks up at him through bleary eyes, a confused frown quickly replaced by a small smile, and for a second, so quick he almost doesn't realise it himself, he's loathe to pull back, because he can just about smell her, that perfume he makes a mental note to buy her next Christmas, show his appreciation.

"Time?" she's clearly only awake enough for one-word sentences.

He checks his watch, "Just gone six…" as the seatbelt light dims and there's that irrational rush for everyone on the aeroplane to get out of their seats and push towards the doors. He unhooks his seatbelt and stands up slowly, stretching his legs, offering a grateful side-thought that it was only a short flight. As he opens the overhead compartment, pulling his own briefcase and Nikki's bag down, he glances down at his colleague. She's rubbing the sleep from her eyes, tucking her hair behind her ears, and he smiles slightly to himself for a moment.

"Have I got something on my face?" she cocks an eyebrow, never one to miss a trick. Harry frowns.

"What?"

"That look you're giving me…"

The smile widens slightly, subconsciously, and he gestures, eyes glinting, to the corner of his own mouth. "You've got a little dribble…" he laughs, giving her a wink. She pouts slightly and tries to stretch her leg out to kick him, futilely as he takes a teasing step backwards, the grin stretching to his whole face.

For that, she doesn't tell him he's still carrying her handbag until they're halfway across the tarmac and he's getting a few funny looks… she half-skips to keep up with him, tugging the bag from his arm and giving him _that smile _that he thinks looks like the sun shines out of her eyes, and never fails to make the corners of his own mouth turn up.

He nudges her with his elbow as they stand waiting for their suitcases, and she gives him a shove back with her hip… his case comes round first and he gives her a decidedly childish smirk in triumph. When they have both finally gotten control of their luggage, as well as control of their own behaviour, it seems, they pull their respective suitcases down the unnecessarily long walkway towards the car hire. Nikki, having made the decidedly uneducated decision to bring a non pull-along case, struggles along the tarmac, the suitcase banging against her right calf every few seconds. Harry turns from where he's effortlessly pulling his own case, giving her a satisfied smirk for a moment, before stopping to let her catch up.

"Want to swap bags?"

She gives him a scathing look. "I'm just fine, thank you."

He can't help chuckling to himself as he hangs back to walk beside her, watching her bump the case against her leg periodically, and her facial expressions shift through various levels of pain, fatigue and annoyance.

The car is of course the farthest from the terminal, and by the time they've checked in at the desk and Nikki has taken the keys firmly from the smiling clerk – _I booked the car, Harry, I'm driving_ – dusk has settled around them, and it's nearer night than day.

She at least lets him heave the suitcase into the boot of the silver hire car, giving him what might just pass as a grateful smile if he squints.

He loads his own suitcase on top of Nikki's, unzipping the front to safely stow their paperwork away… his previous track record, and hers especially gives him no confidence that they will get through the conference without losing something essential to their flight home.

When he climbs into the passenger seat, colourful language is coming out of her mouth as she makes a futile attempt to prod the Tom-Tom into submission.

"Fucking shit bastard…" she's hissing, and he can't help another laugh. If looks could kill, her glance that follows would have had him bleeding out on the floor, and he bites his tongue and watches in silent amusement as she has her battle with the technology, which seems to be refusing to stay on for more than four seconds at a time.

"Uh… Nikki?"

Eyebrows raised, she turns on him, "Think you could do it better?" her tone drips with sarcasm somewhere on the line between humour and actual irritation.

"You need to plug it in…"

Another repertoire of curses escapes those perfect, ladylike lips, and he nudges her slightly with his shoulder, bringing a reluctant smile to her face.

"Shut up." She hisses, although he isn't saying a word.

As they finally pull out of the car park, Harry breathes a sigh of relief. They'd had a slight battle with getting the seat into a more upright position, with locating the full beam, and with figuring out how to clear the back windscreen, but as Nikki puts the car into gear it splutters into life in an altogether convincing manner. The Tom-Tom illuminates on the windscreen, directing them for 26 minutes to a hotel somewhere, which Leo had booked. Nikki hasn't cursed in the last five minutes, and she's starting to hum along to the radio – Harry believes he may have escaped murder for another day, at least.

Bloody conference.

They've just finished a particularly harrowing case – a Jack-the-Ripper copycat serial killer murdering young prostitutes in the East End – and with Janet in the last month of her pregnancy, Leo hadn't been as involved as usual, leaving the two of them to shoulder most of the weight. That's also their boss' excuse for sending them in his place to the annual conference, despite their constant complaining about the _type _of people they have the pleasure to meet there every year.

So here they are, Nikki just pulling onto the bypass and putting her foot on the gas, Harry tapping his fingers absent-mindedly against the top of the window in time to the radio, a frown on his face.

"Cheer up." Nikki smiles, glancing at his face, "We can always skip the afternoon lectures…"

He gives her the flash of a smile, and she knows they're both remembering another conference that was so completely _thrilling _they decided to go AWOL in the afternoon. Another conference – where they'd ended up running through a thunderstorm and taking refuge in a pub… And they both know how that had ended.

The silence hangs in the air, but it's not uncomfortable.

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**Hope you enjoy tonight!**


	2. Two

**Chapter Two**

They're barely five minutes into their journey, and Nikki's just pulled off of the main road and is following the signs to Pencuik, where they're staying, when the radio starts to crackle.

That's the first sign.

Harry half-heartedly fiddles with the buttons for a few moments, trying to find something that isn't just white noise, but gives up quickly, and turns it off.

"Crap hire cars." He grumbles, leaning back in his seat, "Was it your idea to book Budget cars?"

Nikki gives a little laugh, and somewhere inside, some hopelessly romantic version of Harry notes that her laugh is one of his favourite things, about her, about anyone.

It all happens very quickly after that.

Firstly, the flakes of snow falling lightly around them turn heavier, and the windscreen wipers are making a futile attempt to keep Nikki's line of sight clear. They're off the main roads when the fog descends, and suddenly neither of them can see anything but the reflection back of the headlights, and Nikki's hands are suddenly gripping the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles are turning white.

He doesn't say anything for a few minutes as they plough on at 25mph through the twisting roads, but eventually, watching his friend's chest rise and fall slightly too quickly, he speaks.

"You all right?" he murmurs.

"Hate driving in the snow." She breathes, not taking her eyes of the blurry road in front of her. Occasionally a more well-accustomed Scottish driver will overtake them, zipping past, as if they're not driving through the same awful conditions, but other than that, it's tedious and silent in the car. Harry doesn't want to say anything, break her concentration, and Nikki has no wish to make polite concentration, her heart thumping in her chest.

She was still in university, and she'd gone to stay in Leeds with one of her Bio-chem friends. They'd been driving home in the middle of winter, and the car had skidded underneath them, and they'd careered straight into a tree. She'd been in the passenger seat, but Caroline – her friend – had been thrown forward straight into the steering wheel, her head smashing against the windscreen. She hadn't woken up for seven weeks, and after that she'd never been the same. She hasn't thought about her in so many years - but suddenly she can see her face in her mind, and the car feels like something completely out of her control, like it's slipping under her grasp, and she wishes more than anything that she hadn't been so stubborn and she'd just let Harry drive. Harry, who's staring out of the window like there's nothing wrong.

It's a tight corner on a road hardly big enough for even one car when she skids, and she's hardly doing twenty, but the turn's too sharp. Their slow speed means the back of the car only swings out a few metres, but Harry lurches forward in his seat, and for a moment she imagines his head colliding with the windscreen the way Caroline's had – and she feels so sick. She thinks Harry's saying something, but there's a roaring in her ears.

Everything she's ever known about driving in the snow goes out of the window and she slams the brakes on, her whole body shaking as the car skids to a halt, diagonally positioned at the side of the road, engine grumbling.

She can't stop shaking, and she can't look over at Harry, not for a second. It's not til she feels him lean across and turn the engine off wordlessly, and he places a hand on her shoulder that she turns to him, concerned eyes meeting her own.

"Sorry?" she whispers, and it comes out sounding like a question.

"It's ok…" he whispers, the hand on her arm snaking round her shoulders, and pulling her into an awkward hug.

For a long moment she stays exactly where she is, but then her seatbelt is digging into her neck, and this isn't the most comfortable of positions, so reaches down and slips the seatbelt out of its holder, and buries her head in his neck.

Harry strokes her hair lightly, wondering not only what the hell is going on but also where to go from here.

"It's ok…" he breathes again.

"This is stupid, I'm being stupid." She hisses, and he feels her breath on his neck… he can't help his body tensing as he realises her proximity, as he feels her pressed against him.

"No…" he disagrees lightly, keeping his hand in her hair. "You can't see anything out there… it's frightening…"

He hates that he sounds like he's talking to a child, but he feels the imprint of her lips smile slightly, and he rubs her back gently, wondering how long he gets to keep this moment.

"When I was nineteen… I was… we were driving in the snow… hit a tree… my friend… subdural haematoma… she was lucky to even survive…"

He fights the overwhelming urge to kiss her hair, realising her story explains her shaking hands, her pale, afraid face. He settles for rubbing small circles into the small of her back instead, holding her close.

"It's ok…" he says for the third time, wishing he had something more substantial to comfort her.

Minutes later, she pulls back slightly, not disentangling herself from his arms entirely, but so she can see his eyes.

"Harry?"

"Uh huh?" he breathes, because there's something different about this moment, and he's sure she can hear his heart thudding in his chest, it's that loud.

"Would you drive the rest?"

He smiles slightly, but the laugh isn't set free, because he couldn't possibly have mistaken the obvious glance she just gave his lips, could he? And he finds himself looking down at hers, curved slightly, parted slightly… he meets her eyes again and there's something unreadable in them…

Nikki's pretty sure she's about to kiss Harry Cunningham, and in this moment she can't think of the thousand reasons she tells herself almost every night before she goes to bed – the thousand reasons she's compiled as to why she shouldn't. Some rubbish about him being her best friend, about not wanting to lose him, ever, and they could destroy everything they had, that he drove her mad most of the time, and she knew she evoked the same reaction in him…

Right this second, all she can see are his intense dark eyes, focused so absorbedly on her own that she can practically hear her own heartbeat.

Suddenly, all those reasons mean nothing, because he's looking at her like he does in her dreams, and her breath hitches in anticipation as he leans closer to her…

Her phone rings, buzzing violently in the compartment between the seats, and they spring apart so violently that Harry bangs his head on the roof of the car. She glances down at the phone, inwardly cursing the caller, desperately avoiding Harry's gaze. The words LEO MOBILE appear on the screen, and Harry sees it at the same moment as her and she's pretty sure she hears a bitter laugh.

Trying to conceal her disappointment, she lifts the phone to her ear.

"Leo?"

"Just checking in, seeing whether you've gotten to the hotel safely." He sounds far too jovial. Nikki stares pointedly out of the window.

"We're nearly there." Her eyes dart to the Tom Tom, indicating a further nine minutes. "The driving conditions are terrible."

"Let me know when you're there safely, ok?" she hears someone say something in the background, "And make sure you set your alarms in the morning and set off in plenty of time… you don't want to miss the conference."

He's become so much more of a worrier since Janet's pregnancy.

"We'll be fine, Leo. I'll let you know when we get to the hotel."

"Thanks, Nikki. See you."

She hangs up, daring to dart a glance in her friend's direction. He's staring at her, smiling enigmatically, and though there's nothing of the _desire _in his eyes there was moments ago, there's still something new, something unreadable, like he's in on a secret she hasn't quite caught up with yet. She smiles sardonically back, and puts the phone back down, her pulse slowing to normal, her rationality taking over again, those thousand reasons creeping their way back into her mind.

It's going to be one hell of a long night.

**Hope you enjoyed, let me know what you think.**

**Thank you for all your lovely reviews, and thank you EmmaJ1996, I can't reply to yours!**


	3. Three

**You're all so lovely I decided you get an update today! Special thanks to all my reviewers!**

**Chapter Three**

Nikki takes two steps out of the car, dragging the suitcase behind her, and slips up in her decidedly impractical shoes.

Her arse makes contact almost instantly with the snow, and her gloveless hands sting instantly when they feel the cold. She looks up to see Harry offering her a leather-gloved, warm looking hand, a smile and a mocking glint in his eye.

"Enjoy the trip?" he remarks sarcastically, and takes her hand firmly, without giving her a second to think, pulls her upwards. Again, neither of them account for the snow, and she slips forward slightly and overbalances, finding herself lunging forward, a clumsy freezing cold pendulum only stopped by her friend's arms wrapping themselves around her shoulders.

She finds her face so close to his that she can only just see his breath clouding in the cold air if she half crosses her eyes. His eyes are darker again, and her breathing is suddenly near to impossible. She watches him swallow, visibly, and his eyes are flickering all over her face, and then he steps back, the eye contact lost, and takes her suitcase in his spare hand.

_They've got to stop doing this._

She isn't quite sure what's happening as she trots slightly vacantly after Harry, who is pointedly carrying both suitcases with an unnecessary spring in his step, and, she suspects, also rather pointedly not looking at her. She's not sure where she is, not sure where they are, and wonders briefly if there's something in the Scottish air that is magnetising the pair of them together enough to get her heart racing.

"How may I help?" The girl at the front desk recites, as if she's said it a thousand times, and she makes the pair of them smile, she can only be about sixteen.

"We'd like to book two rooms for the next two nights… adjacent rooms if you've got them?"

Her eyebrows rise straight away, first at the English accent coming out of Harry's mouth, and then at his request for two rooms. "Two rooms?" she asks, looking slightly bewildered, "Are you sure?"

Harry nods, a slight smile reaching his lips. "Sure."

She bends down for a moment, rattling around in some cupboard, and Nikki finds the clock on the wall of the lobby intensely fascinating – she can't meet Harry's gaze right now, she just can't, the girl's disbelief at the two rooms is still running through her mind, and her fantasies are crossing her thoughts… fantasies she's normally brilliant at keeping just to when she's at home, alone, perfect for shutting away somewhere when she's anywhere near him, but that girl's comment and the – she can't even think what to call them, so she's gonna go with moments – moments in the car, and after they'd just got out… the sexual tension that she's always known is between them is rearing its ugly head, and now is _not the time_…

The girl stands up again and puts two keys on the desk, "Can I take your details… erm… both your details if you're paying separately?" she flushes a little in her cheeks, as if considering that they might not be a paying couple is something she's embarrassed by. Harry smiles fully then, and turns to Nikki for a moment.

"I'll give her the company's details… Shall we meet down here for some dinner in half an hour?" That grin on his face is contagious, she can't help smiling back.

"Half an hour, then." She smiles, lifting one of the keys off the desk and heading towards the lift.

"Third floor, to the left when you're off the lift…" the serving girl recites, and Nikki hardly hears her. She needs that half an hour of alone time, half an hour to recover, to quell these feelings that are rushing through her. The minute the lift doors close she puts her head in her hands, rubbing at her temples slightly, trying to calm the thoughts in her mind. This is nothing new, she's been having these thoughts for years, she's looked on Harry that way for almost as long as she's known him, but there's something less manageable about it tonight… there's something about those _moments _in the car, just outside the car, there's something about the look she'd caught in his eyes in those seconds, something that's making what she can normally push away, force to the very back of her mind, come forward, loom in front of her, take control of her, make her not a hundred percent in control of her actions. She takes a deep breath, and steps out of the lift slowly and calmly and into her room as she reaches the third floor. She's been very good for a long time at ignoring this sexual tension, failing to acknowledge even its existence, anywhere other than in her dreams, she'll have to find a way of recalibrating herself and getting onto more even ground. It isn't like this is original; she's been dealing with sensing there's something there between them for years. Her only problem's ever been that he's shown no sign of noticing.

When the door into the small dining room opens and she walks over, he has to catch his breath for a moment. She's only in jeans and a jumper, and she looks hardly any different to the way she did half an hour ago, but there's something about having Nikki Alexander walking towards a table, dedicating a couple of hours to solely him – he takes a deep breath. This is somehow too like that dates he takes her on in his dream world, the place of imagination he doesn't even dare let himself think about very often…

She sits down opposite him, giving him a small smile – that smile, the one he'll never stop falling victim to – and taking a sip from the large glass of red wine he's already taken the initiative of ordering.

"I let Leo know we're here and didn't die…" he smiles, "He's getting like our grandmother, that man…"

She grins, thinking of how Leo's changed slightly since Janet's near miraculous pregnancy, if you didn't know him well, you wouldn't even notice. "Leave him alone. He's starting to get back into the attitude of being a parent again… he's not sure about it… I don't think he knows if he's ready to do that again, not after what he went through…"

"He's gonna do it well again, though…" Harry says softly, looking out of the window, and for a moment Nikki's unsure of whether it's aimed at her, or if he's really just talking to himself, "He's going to be brilliant…"

There's a silence for a moment, and Nikki knows they're both thinking about the horrors that Leo's suffered, and the bravery it must be taking in every second to put yourself into this again, when you've seen literally the worst outcome the first time through.

Nikki orders haggis, she's always been one for doing things the local way, trying to seem as cultured and brave as possible, and she ignores Harry as he shakes his head and tells her he's tried it once, and he doesn't like it. When it's served, it looks nice, and it smells nice, but she takes one mouthful and he sees her wrinkling her nose almost instantly, and a pout that makes him grin unnecessarily crosses her face.

"Ok, I should have listened to you." She frowns, and he can't stop the laugh then, but he pushes the plate of haggis to the side and his own plate of fish and chips in the middle of them, smiling, watching her eyes.

"It's alright, we can share…"

There's the most part of an hour of small talk, harmless conversation, and they've finished the fish and chips and are putting some more Merlot away, when Nikki's face turns slightly whiter, he notices her hand on her glass slightly shaking.

"I can't get his face out of my head." She half-whispers, as if it's something she's embarrassed of, "He's sometimes in my dreams…"

And Harry doesn't need to ask, he somehow knows she's talking about the killer they just put away, the man imitating Jack the Ripper, murdering the prostitutes in London. He gives a slight shudder himself; there was something about the man that turned his stomach as well, somewhere between the cold indifference in his voice, the complete detachment from the murders, and the look in his eyes as he'd finally confessed to it all, as if he was almost proud of what he'd done.

He doesn't give himself time to think about what he's doing, he reaches out and wraps his own hand around Nikki's, as if merely holding her hand could protect her from the thought of that man. She gives him a slight smile, and he considers himself proud of that.

"It's alright, Nikki… sometimes there are those cases that will linger on our minds… it's just because we're not the kind of people we put away, we can't be that detached…"

She doesn't reply, but she squeezes his hand slightly, and that's enough.

They're going to bed, maybe an hour later, and they've taken the lift up together, in comfortable. His room is right next to hers, and as he turns to leave, he catches her hand in his again, and gives her a smile that makes her heart thump a tiny bit faster.

A thousand things flash across his face, through his eyes, in that moment, like he's got so many things he's thinking of saying, but he can't bring himself to. And there are, there are a thousand things he wants to say to her, thousands of things he's been trying to bring up the courage to say for years, but he never has… He leans forward, silently, and presses a kiss to her cheek, and somehow that says slightly more to both of them than so many of the things he's denying the need to say could.

"Night, Nikki." He says softly, "See you in the morning."

He turns and walks into his room like none of it happened, and she has to keep herself in check for a second, to be sure that any of it did, that she read all that on his face, that his lips just brushed her skin.

She stares at the closed door for minutes, thinking of all the things she has to say to him. All the things she doesn't know if she'll ever have the courage to say.

**Please review if you've got five minutes.**


	4. Four

**Chapter Four**

There's a knock on his door, and he's there almost instantly, he's been unpacking a few of his things from his case, he hasn't had time to sit down yet.

It's Nikki, and he has to hold his breath for a moment, because though she's wearing a dressing gown, and she's perfectly decent, those long legs, slightly golden brown, are descending endlessly from the bottom of it, and he has to keep himself in check for seconds. He can't _think _those thoughts, not when she's in the vicinity.

"My shower's stone cold." She smiles, and she's gone a little pink, like she's embarrassed about her faulty shower. "Could I use yours quickly?"

"Of course." He grins back, and she smiles even wider, and he's sure she must be deaf if she can't even hear slightly the difference in his voice, the slight strain that's there as he's trying to calm himself down. Bloody hell, it might be that this is getting to a level of too far if a dressing gown's having this reaction on him. His bathroom door shuts, and he grips onto the side of the bed, trying to calm his breathing, trying to quell his arousal. He can't help but think about her in there, as he hears the water turn on, and he's imagining everything that's going on in that room – he just can't stop himself – she's shedding that dressing gown now, and she's completely naked underneath it…

He has to sit down. The thought of Nikki, completely naked, maybe two metres away from him, is physically hurting. It's not something he can handle standing up.

And she's stepping into the shower now, the water pouring down over every inch of her skin, maybe she's flushing slightly red in places because it's a little warm… all that peachy pale skin, the hot water coming into contact with every tiny aspect of it. It smells so good; he knows that, he hasn't been able to escape the smell of it in their years of friendship, and it's all so soft… so soft it's almost impossible to find anything softer…

His mind's getting ahead of itself now, he's imagining completely naked Nikki, and every centimetre of that skin, and now he's imagining what it might taste like, how beautiful it would be to hold her entirely naked in his arms, kiss it all, lick it all, and he's imagining what places he would find that would make her moan, make her scream… he imagines she's got a spot it's difficult to find just below her ear, and it's a rarity, finding it, but when you do, and you devote your attention to it, she literally comes almost instantly, moaning in your arms, and for moments she's not quite herself, she's entirely yours and yours alone, and completely at your bidding. He can't help but start imagining it the other way, as well, Nikki kissing every inch of his own skin, finding those places that are so sensitive, driving him mad. And dear God, she needs to be out of that shower in a second, because he really needs a stone cold one now, he really does.

When he thinks it couldn't get any worse, he couldn't get any closer to the edge; she steps out of the bathroom.

And she's wearing just a towel. And that leaves even less to the imagination than the dressing gown.

* * *

><p>He's in the shower now, the freezing cold water pouring over him, and his mind's clearing slightly. It was completely awkward, when she came out, just in that towel, because it was making all his <em>inappropriate <em>thoughts solidify in his mind, come nearer to the surface, and he'd managed a gabbled 'Good night' before heading into the bathroom himself, taking as many deep breaths as possible, turning the temperature of the shower right down. The cold water's helping him clear his mind now though, and he's getting a lot of his common sense back, a lot more into the world of reality… he's Nikki's best friend, they've known each other for years, they couldn't have a better friendship, but those thoughts he's having… they're something that's devoted just to him… he's alone on that front. He sighs slightly, wishing for the hundredth time in the last years that she could see what he saw in their relationship, but he's knows he's fighting a losing battle and always has been – he has to calm himself down and find someone else – Nikki's not someone who'll ever be his.

He turns the shower off, and steps out, towel-drying himself briefly and then wrapping it around his waist, cleaning his teeth and looking for a few extra seconds in the mirror – he always does that, he always has to check, when his feelings are getting this strong, that the thoughts he's having about Nikki aren't readable on his face. He's all clear though, it's something that's entirely in his mind, not on show, and so he steps out of the bathroom, ready for a long night… he already knows he's going to find it difficult to sleep.

What he doesn't expect is for Nikki to be sat on his bed.

"You're still here?" he jokes, mock-groaning slightly and smiling at her, suddenly painfully aware that the only thing he's wearing is a towel around his waist… though she's in her pyjamas now, which he thanks any God that might be listening for, because he just can't concentrate on any form of conversation with her when she's in that towel…

"Yep." She laughs lightly, and then her voice gets lower, quieter, and there's something in her eyes that tells him she's got something important to say.

"Nikki?" he responds, unsure why he's trying to make her laugh, trying to keep the situation light-hearted when he can sense she's going to say something big, but he's never really been in control of what he says. He's always been the person that says completely the wrong thing in every situation.

She takes such a deep breath it's visible, and looks right up at him, so their eyes meet, and she doesn't break the gaze.

What she says next makes him think for a moment maybe she's had more wine tonight that he had thought, maybe he'd underestimated her alcohol capacity, and then when he registers it, it makes him speechless, it holds a silence between them for a moment.

"In the car… earlier… there was something, right?" she whispers, and she looks so scared, as if she's terrified of what she's doing, and she is… she's fearing that she's bringing up something that was mainly in her own mind, that she's made it something more than it was, that she's about to ruin a friendship.

For a moment they stare at each other in silence.

**Please review, the last chapter will be up tomorrow. Thank you all so much for all your lovely feedback so far :)**


	5. Five

**Thank you so much for all your wonderful feedback on this fic, and thank you to those anonymous reviews I can't reply to! Hope the last chapter lives up to all your expectations!**

**Chapter Five**

When he eventually finds some words, he's sure he can hear some sort of difference to normal in his voice, some sort of fear…

"Well… that depends what kind of something you're talking about…" he murmurs, and he could kill himself at that point for making it even slightly close to a joke, he needs to learn there are some points where it's necessary to be a hundred percent serious.

There's silence again, like she's unsure how to respond to his mild joking, and to be honest, she's not had too much to drink, it's not the alcohol that's getting these words out, but maybe the three glasses of wine are making it easier, making her slightly more ready to take a chance, slightly more daring.

She doesn't say anything else, it's like she's run out of words for their situation, she simply kneels, straightening herself out, coming closer to him, and higher up, and kisses him, square on the mouth, as if she's run out of words, and it's the only answer to the situation, the only way forward she's got left to think of.

For a moment they're almost stock still, tasting each other, both of them suddenly in an alien world, and both of them a thousand times more unnecessarily nervous than they've ever been before, kissing another person. Because this… this is something quite different, they're both kissing a best friend, and they've got so much to lose if this goes wrong… so much that they could be risking. Then, after moments of silence and reluctance to move on both their behalves, one of Harry's hands cups around the back of her head, and one finds the small of her back, and her mouth opens and suddenly they're both more enthusiastic, like they've both been reassured this risk's worth taking. She's tastes beautiful, a voice in his head's saying, so many times better than he remembers from that brief incident in the pub so many years ago, and he finds himself smiling slightly, thinking that that was an escape from a conference, maybe there's something that conferences do to them. Hell, maybe they should go on them more often. She pulls her head back for a second, not moving anything else further away from him; she's properly in his arms now, both her own looped around his neck.

"Why are you smiling?" she asks quietly, cocking her head slightly to one side.

He shakes his head a little, "Oh, it's nothing… I was remembering the time I kissed you to shut you up…" he sighs slightly, and the words he gives her now are literally his train of thought, he hasn't thought about them before they come out of his mouth, "…and I've been wanting, ever since, for that to happen again… I've just never had the courage to do what you just did…" he presses a slight kiss to her mouth, making her smile widen, "…I didn't want to ruin anything…"

Nikki laughs a little to herself and gives him a grin, "Well, we've always known I've got more balls than you, Dr Cunningham…"

And he laughs, and kisses her, pulling her slightly closer, speeding it all up, because there's something about having her in his arms, calling him Dr Cunningham, that turns him so far on, he can't even begin to put it into words.

In moments, she's pulling him onto the bed with her, and pushing the towel down from his legs, and for a moment he stops her, holding her by the shoulders, looking at her with all levels of seriousness on his face.

"Are you sure this is what you want, Nikki?" he says quietly, and it almost brings a tear to her eye, how turned on she can feel he is, and still how worried he is about upsetting her, taking anything too far.

"Of course this is what I bloody want!" she laughs and he smiles, so much she suspects he couldn't smile wider, and he pushes himself up on top of the bed, on top of her, the towel forgotten on the floor.

And they both lose themselves.

* * *

><p>The image in front of his eyes when he opens them in the morning is the one he's been dreaming about for years now, her face centimetres from his, her eyes closed, completely naked in his bed. He can't help the massive grin that's spreading across his face as he kisses her on the forehead lightly, waiting for her to wake up. Before she does, however, he notices the sight of the town out of the window, he can just see the car-park, and there's snow at least half-way up the car, they look seriously snowed in.<p>

Her eyes flutter open, and they're somehow more beautiful than they've ever been - and he's always loved her eyes – and he reads confusion and then realisation across them in the first few seconds, and then a smile creeps across her face and she pushes her lips against his, smiling against his mouth, her half-awake kiss gentle and slow and somehow tired, but beautiful. He grins to himself for a minute as he thinks he'll never get tired of this.

He lifts his phone, checking the time – and they're absolutely fine for the conference, they've got an hour, but something about the conditions outside tells him they might just be snowed in, he's going to ring the conference… and of course his phone's completely void of signal, so he slips out of the bed, throws a dressing gown around himself, gives her a little peck on the cheek, and starts towards the door.

"I think we're snowed in, I'm going downstairs to speak to the staff – I'll be back in a moment."

She smiles at him as he leaves, and as the door closes behind him she lets a huge smile spread across her face – she'd been dreaming about last night for years, she'd been wishing it would be there one day, but knowing – she knows wrong now – that it would never reach her, she'd never make it. And it was so good, as well. She remembers vividly for a second laying there and screaming his name, she remembers the way his lips felt on all parts of her body – hell; it was possible last night was the best she'd ever had. She can't stop the unnecessary grins. She just had sex with her best friend in the world and it was possibly the most turned on she'd ever been.

After 5 minutes he's back in the room, shedding the dressing gown and climbing into the bed next to her, a wide smile on his face.

"We're snowed in, and I phoned Leo… and the conference is cancelled…" he kissed her square on the mouth, his tongue duelling hers, "…the hotel staff think it'll be at least twenty four hours before we can get back on the road – so we can spend the whole day in bed…"

She ran her fingers through his hair, kissing him again, feeling the warmth in the pit of her stomach increasing, and feeling him turning her on again.

"The whole day in bed, hmmm?" she asked, cocking her head slightly to one side, "And what do you think we should do about that?"

His arms are circling her, his body's close to hers again, she can see how dark his eyes have turned, how fast his breathing suddenly is.

"Well, there's only one thing I can think of to kill the time…"

**Hope you've enjoyed, and the ending was ok. Thank you for all your support.**


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